Surgical lesion removal has traditionally been performed using a variety of surgical tools and techniques, some of which are specially adapted for a particular procedure. For example, large lesion removal from, e.g., the human breast, is typically attempted through an open incision using an ordinary surgical knife or scalpel. While the use of scalpels is widely accepted, they are not designed to minimize the invasiveness of a surgical procedure. During a surgical procedure, it is usually necessary to form an incision which is much larger than the lesion which is targeted for removal, so that the surgeon can work around, under, and over the lesion to remove both the entire lesion and a margin of tissue surrounding the lesion. The removal of a margin of tissue around the lesion is typically indicated, to be more certain that all of the lesion has been removed by the surgical procedure.
While the practice of removing tissue adjacent to a tissue mass of interest, e.g., a malignant or benign lesion, is followed in many lumpectomy procedures, the tools provided for a surgeon to remove the tissue are not well suited for performing the procedure. Straight and sculpted blade scalpels do not assist the surgeon in making the smallest cut necessary, and often require the surgeon to essentially dig out the tissue mass. The damage to the remaining tissues can be significant, resulting in considerable postoperative pain, excessive bleeding, long recovery times, the potential for infection, the potential for depression of the tissues at the surgical site (poor cosmesis) due to the removal of excessive tissue, and surface tissue scarring which is much larger than necessary. Furthermore, use of these conventional tools and techniques may cause excessive damage to the removed tissue and thus create a tissue specimen having ragged and irregular margins or borders. This, in turn can lead to inaccurate pathology studies of the excised tissue. There are some practitioners who believe that a significant number of negative pathology reports (i.e. reports which indicate that the specimen margins are clear of malignant tissue) are false negatives that will most likely result in recurrence of cancer in the patient. It is felt that a surgical device that results in smooth uniform margins would result in far more accurate pathology reports, particularly with patients who have or who are thought to have breast cancer. Patient management based on these more accurate reports would in turn lead to lower recurrence in breast cancer patients.
Breast cancer is presently the most common cancer in women and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women. With approximately one in eight American women developing breast cancer sometime in her lifetime, it is apparent that improved methods of diagnosis, such as breast biopsy are needed.
Electrosurgical devices have previously been used for tissue cutting, and surgical procedures. However, such devices typically use small, often pointed active cutting surfaces and the types of devices available to the surgeon who uses electrosurgery are limited. Furthermore, breast tissue and various other tissues are heterogeneous tissues and contain a variety of tissue types such as connective tissue, glandular tissue, vascular tissue, and adipose (fatty) tissue. Connective glandular and vascular tissues have similar characteristics in the way they react to high frequency electrical energy and hence the electrosurgical device. However, adipose (fatty)) tissue presents a higher impedance to the flow of electrical current than do the other types of tissues, and presents more difficulty in cutting. Thus, during an electrosurgical procedure if fatty tissue is encountered, a surgeon must perform surgical cuts by “feathering”, making repetitive shallow cuts over the same area to attain a desired depth of cut. These repetitive shallow cuts expose the patient to an increased risk of receiving an unnecessary amount of electrical energy, greater injury to surrounding tissues, greater risk of infection, as well as potentially creating ragged or irregular margins in biopsied tissues.
From the discussion above, it should be apparent that there is need in the art for more effective surgical cutting devices which lead to less trauma to the surrounding and biopsied tissues and which can provide biopsy specimens having smooth regular margins. Furthermore there is a need in the art for additional types of tools used in electrosurgery which give the operator greater control over the types and configurations of cuts made in tissue during a surgical procedure. The present invention fulfills these needs.